


Royal Blood

by crystalsoulslayer



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:14:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1353706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalsoulslayer/pseuds/crystalsoulslayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richelieu's taste for power is quite literal; Treville keeps catching on, and has to be persuaded to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Royal Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Though Treville doesn't realize it, all the sex in this fic is non-consensual; Richelieu is using his vampire powers to seduce him so he can wipe his memory.

Treville was not concerned with the… event… being revealed by the Cardinal. It was as much in his interest to remain silent as Treville’s, and he was more than capable of rendering the… incident… nonexistent, at least in the eyes of the world. Richelieu had, naturally, a good deal of very valuable experience in keeping secrets.

Treville sometimes wondered, idly, as he watched the Cardinal’s machinations at play, where it was that the infamous schemer had acquired his talent for subterfuge. In the Church, perhaps. It was obviously a given fact that the Cardinal would blackmail his own mother if it suited him, but what had provided him with the means of doing so? Was it some devilish cultivation, or divine provenance, or simply Richelieu’s own ironclad will that had given rise to that indefatigable aptitude for deceit and manipulation?

Regardless, he would only ever be able to speculate, as Richelieu had an equally astonishing skill at deflecting any interest in his personal self. Armand Jean du Plessis, _cardinal-duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac,_ seemed to have no past, only a powerful and demanding present, and a future comprised of the same. The Cardinal’s dubious gift was an undeniable fact of Treville’s life. It was best, no doubt, simply to worry about the thing itself, rather than ponder its origins.

This, therefore, was Treville’s chosen course of action. It served him well for many years; he was able, if not exactly to _work with_ the King’s closest advisor, at least to tolerate him.

But something had changed.

Treville had the distinct impression of having seen something, or heard something; of having put two and two together; and of this revelation being of a nature that would shake the nation to its very foundations, and that it concerned the Cardinal somehow. But the exact nature of this knowledge was out of his reach. It was as though the fact were a word, perched on the tip of Treville’s tongue and longing to dive out into the air, which he simply could not quite put his finger on.

But it was a memory, rather than a word; and the safety of all of France rested upon his grasp of it.

It was not the… _occurrence_ itself. Of that, Treville was certain. But they were related in some way.

-~-

He dreamed of it.

Not of his lost memory; that eluded him in his sleeping hours as well as his waking ones. No, he dreamed of Richelieu, of what had happened between them, of their unholy liaison. And it was _unholy_ , no matter what Richelieu had whispered in his ear.

In confession, Treville had said simply that he had acted on lustful thoughts. It was not untrue. Neither was it a lie when, after being pressed, he had told his confessor that both he and his partner were unmarried, and that, so far as he knew, they were both of sound mind and body at the time. His penance seemed wholly inadequate; Treville tripled it, and hoped that prayers and donations would be sufficient restitution for his soul.

Richelieu, of course, acted as if nothing had happened at all. For his part, Treville found that the episode had made his work slightly _easier_ , somehow. What, after all, was a little political intrigue, so long as the Cardinal kept his distance, and his tongue out of Treville’s mouth?

Months went by, and Treville’s guilt began to follow the example set by the leaves of France’s trees. It faded, and withered, and all but fell away, making no more intrusions in Treville’s conscious thoughts. The memory remained, only asserting itself occasionally, in the form of heated and humid dreams. These no longer disturbed Treville sufficiently to wake him or trouble him throughout the day, as they once had. And, it happened, Richelieu’s parting words began to soothe him.

_Do not fear for your soul in this, Captain. For there is very little which God will not deign to forgive, and our offense here is among the least of the sins he finds in the hearts of Man._

-~-

At first, knowing that a sin unpunished would likely be a sin repeated, Treville was very uncomfortable being alone with the Cardinal. Richelieu obviously noticed, but made no mention of it, or the event, at all. Treville was relieved to find that, on the occasion they should have uninterrupted private time together, Richelieu was careful to respect Treville’s discomfort. He remained always on the other side of a desk, if available; if there were no furniture suitable for a barrier, he maintained a distance whereby Treville was unthreatened, but conversation could be carried out at a reasonable volume.

Given their dislike of one another, Treville had expected the Cardinal to torture him _somehow_. Perhaps, in a quiet moment, there would be a lingering gaze, or a knowing eyebrow, or some smirk which could not be explained through any other understanding. But none of these, nor any unexpected agony, was forthcoming.

Richelieu, in fact, made no indications _at all_. The longer it went on, the more disturbed Treville became by the perfection of Richelieu’s countenance. It was as though some talented artist visited Richelieu in every moment, so as to paint upon his features the exact expression expected by the needs of the situation. When they received word of a nobleman’s illicit affair with a male servant, it was as though the Cardinal was completely unaffected. A put-upon sigh. A careless gesture. A mild frown. As if such a distasteful occurrence had no symmetry in his own life; as if he were a totally objective observer, who rarely even _thought_ of such things; as if he had never been guilty of _worse_.

That was the last straw.

-~-

“How do you do it?”

The Cardinal paused, looked up, frowned at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“How do you do it?” Treville repeated.

Richelieu gave Treville a concerned sort of look, then cast his gaze down to the half-finished signature on some document or another, then to his quill, and finally back to the man standing across his desk. “Captain Treville. If you have, during the entire course of your long and storied career, been unaware of how to _write—“_

“That isn’t what I mean. You _know_ what I mean. How is it that you can behave as though…”

Treville could not finish. Richelieu smiled gently at him. He actually looked rather benevolent. It was terrifying. “As though I had never spent half an hour of my _very_ precious time attempting to wash my dried seed from your hair?” Treville flushed instantly, causing Richelieu to tilt his head slightly in a mockery of coyness. The smile still played about the Cardinal’s lips as he continued, “Is that what you were going to say, Monsieur Treville?”

Treville closed his eyes and swallowed thickly. “I had intended to put it rather more… delicately.” When he opened his eyes again, the chair behind the desk was empty. Before he could react, the Cardinal replied, somehow, from _directly behind him._

“If you had no intent of a frank discussion on the matter, why did you mention it at all?” Treville spun on his heel to find him _far_ too close for comfort. His gray-blue eyes were oddly dark, the blacks of his pupils slightly more expansive than could be explained by the candlelit darkness of the room. Treville made no reply, and the Cardinal continued, “Such contradiction resides in you, Captain. Such… _dissonance_. If I presented to you a man willing to experience either, you would be much more disposed to effect his death than his pleasure. A product, no doubt, of our beloved society. What a bizarre people we are, that we are unable to discuss the heart of a man unless it is being cut out.”

He’d come closer still as he spoke, so that Treville was trapped between His Eminence and the desk. “I don’t think what transpired between us could be called a matter of the heart,” he said, trying to ignore the way his voice pitched and rolled, like a ship caught by a great ocean wave.

“And why not?”

“Because my heart desires me to _despise_ you.”

Richelieu laughed aloud, apparently with genuine amusement. “Again, the contradiction.” He raised a hand, tracing a finger over Treville’s lips. “These say you disapprove of our encounter. But this…” His hand dropped much lower, cupping the fabric over Treville’s rapidly hardening erection. “… _This_ says you’d like to do it again.”

Treville flushed once more, slightly darker, his mouth falling open in shock. Once more, a minor tilt of the Cardinal’s head. But he took his hand away, resting it on the edge of the desk, uncomfortably close to Treville’s side. Treville could not help a sigh of relief.

“Never fear. I shall take the word of _your_ voice, and not that of your… little Captain.”

Before he could stop himself, Treville replied acidly, “Funny for you to say it is a _little_ Captain, when the other Cardinal is so tiny.”

“Your whore mouth did not consider it very small before.” He said it coldly, but the damnable smile still lingered on his thin lips. “In answer to your original question, I will say only that I simply treat my every lie, spoken or unspoken, as true. If your _fragile heart_ desires to keep this secret, you need only do the same. And, ideally, you will refrain from speaking of it—not with anyone else, nor with me. Unless you have brought it up out of some wish to choke on my length again, of course.”

-~-

It happened again.

The same intolerable sensation of _knowing something_ , of having an important thought, now forgotten.

The same inexplicable, sudden, powerful attraction to the Cardinal. And this time, it was _Treville_ who advanced on _him_ , pinning the most powerful man in France against the wall and feasting on his mouth. As before, Richelieu did not bother to take Treville into the bedroom, simply pulled off his cloak and his jerkin, left his undershirt, and opened his trousers. As before, Treville did not care. As before, he felt almost drunk on his own arousal, unsteady and fumbling and so very _willing_.

Richelieu had a surprising strength in him, and needed only his hands on either side of Treville’s face to pull him away, then push him down, down, long fingers digging hard into the base of Treville’s skull. And once again, Treville would have bruised knees, would have this memory, would wake some nights swearing he could feel the Cardinal holding his head still and spearing, again and again and again, into his throat. Richelieu’s hands held him firmly in place, and he could not jerk away in surprise this time as thick dollops of bitter syrup filled his mouth and his throat. He choked. When Richelieu pulled out of his mouth at last, he coughed, and coughed again. He realized he was coughing up the Cardinal’s seed, but before he could do much more than have the thought, the other man was dragging him to his feet.

Richelieu spun him around, shoved him forward against that same wall, with the side of his face pressed against crumbling plaster and his palms flat on either side of his head. Neither said a word. Richelieu made no noise at all; the only audible sounds were Treville’s harsh breathing and the rasp of fabric and leather as Richelieu opened his jacket, not bothering to remove it fully, just getting it out of the way so he could access the fastenings of Treville’s trousers.

Treville never quite remembered this part.

He knew the Cardinal’s mouth pressed against the base of his neck, and that the Cardinal’s strong and skilled hand was what eventually brought him off. But he could not bring to mind the sensation itself, as he could so easily if he thought of the hot, blunt flesh in his mouth. He did his best not to wonder what that said about him.

-~-

 _What did he know_?

 _What did he learn_?

_Where was he?_

This was not his bed. The headboard was far too intricate, for one thing, and the sheets much too fine. He wondered if, perhaps, he had met some wealthy lady. He felt sore, in slightly intimate ways not familiar to him—his hips and legs and back ached fiercely as they never had before. He also felt distinctly as though he’d had far too much to drink; he didn’t remember drinking anything, though, so perhaps he was ill.

What time was it? It was dark, but perhaps the shades were drawn. Treville tried to turn over, so he could sit up and look around properly.

A cool, dry hand, decidedly masculine but without calluses, splayed itself on his back, over his spine. His heart, already racing, pounded all the more at the suddenness of the touch against his bare skin, and he froze.

“Good evening, Captain. It’s good to see you awake again.”

The Cardinal.

“Richelieu? What the hell is this?”

“Relax, now. Don’t stress yourself unduly.”

“…Is this _your_ bed?”

“Do you not know where you are?”

“No, and I’m beginning to get very, very angry.”

“Captain, you are in an exceptionally delicate state at present. I implore you, please try to stay calm.”

Treville smacked the Cardinal’s hand away and rolled over, as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, this had the effect of causing him to fall out of the bed entirely, onto a hardwood floor. He caught himself before he was dealt any serious damage, but it was rather undignified. Worse still, on trying to stand, he found the ground far less steady than it ought to be. His vision went curiously gray, his limbs were numb; when he came to, he was hanging like a limp blanket over Richelieu’s arms, and someone was speaking to him.

“Captain? Captain Treville? Can you hear me?”

It took Treville a moment to find his voice again. “Aramis?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Let’s get you back in bed, then we can explain.”

Richelieu and Aramis lifted him back into the bed between them. Aramis’s presence relaxed Treville considerably; for some reason he could not name, the thought of being alone with Richelieu had terrified him. He couldn’t quite articulate, even to himself, a reason why this should be. His Eminence obviously had no love for Treville, but he’d never _directly_ threatened him, or even, so far as Treville could remember, made him physically uncomfortable before.

But there was something missing. Some idea had formed and then been lost, like a word waylaid on its way to his tongue.

“How do you feel?” Aramis asked.

Treville thought about it. “Confused. Thirsty and confused.”

“I’ll fetch some water,” the Cardinal said, and with his usual long and flowing stride, excused himself from the room.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Treville tried to bring something to bear, anything, to tell him what he’d been doing before this moment. Nothing was readily forthcoming, however, and he said simply, “I’m not sure.” Unbidden, an image sprang to his mind. “A carriage? Not inside, riding behind it. A black carriage.”

“It was the Cardinal’s,” Aramis said. “Do you remember leaving from the palace?”

It was as though Aramis’s words were the key to an impenetrable strongbox inside Treville’s head. Each of his prompts caused some memory to unfold itself, which they could arrange until he had an idea of what happened, like putting a series of letters in order.

It occurred after one of Treville’s usual verbal duels with Richelieu. The King had lost his patience, and had said that they should either find some way to be passably civil to one another, or have a real fight like real men. Treville had immediately reached for his sword. According to Aramis, however, Richelieu had said something very persuasive indeed, to the effect that the Captain was an intelligent man in his way, and that they might talk it over like gentlemen rather than resorting immediately and unwisely to violence. After all, were they not both trying to serve their King and their country, in the best way they knew how?

Treville had agreed, and then accepted the Cardinal’s invitation to stay in his country home for a few days while they discussed the matter. Aramis was not there, but he, Porthos, and Athos had responded immediately when the Cardinal sent word on the second night that Treville had been taken ill.

“Do you think he poisoned me?” Treville asked, only half-joking.

Aramis laughed. “No, sir. Not to say he has any love for you, but the Cardinal is not so stupid as to kill you at his own house.”

-~-

At this rate, Treville was going to get himself killed.

Richelieu was as cautious and secretive as he had ever been. It was not, therefore, a matter of a relaxation of his borderline celestial standards of vigilance; it was simply that Treville was intolerably curious, and had been trained in his family’s traditions much more successfully than he was aware.

The Captain of the King’s Musketeers did not pose a serious physical threat. Very little, in fact, could even harm Richelieu, assuming one could get him into a position to be exposed to physical violence in the first place. The man (if he could be called that) who was now serving as First Minister of France had not been gravely injured since… oh, goodness. How long had it been? Not Jerusalem, surely. Had it been Jerusalem? No—there had been that incident in Damascus, which had certainly taught him to respect the power of a skillfully-wielded scimitar, if nothing else. A good seven hundred years ago, now. He was getting on.

But there were advantages to that. He knew all the tricks of the trade.

Treville’s line was a well-known one, and skilled. They knew better than to trust in the power of garlic and crosses and blessed waters, which was a shame—it was always funny when such devices failed to work—and preferred, these days, crossbows and explosives over the more traditional stake. But the deathless creature which currently answered to the name Richelieu was no novice. He was not some clumsy, light-fearing newborn, far removed from the bloodline. Oh, no.

He was a childe of the First, and he was slightly older than the Christ he ostensibly worshiped. He had walked the halls of the great Library at Alexandria, witnessed the fall of the Roman Empire, and had once very nearly succeeded in a ploy to enthrall Alexander the Great (before his sire ordered him not to). Richelieu had always had a taste for royal blood; his sire said that the peculiar energy it gave him was a distillation of the respect granted to rulers by their people. Needless to say, Louis XIII was not the _tastiest_ of Richelieu’s victims; nor was he the most engaging, or the most pleasant. But it was a comfortable position, and would suit him perfectly well until he reached the limits of his ability to simulate aging.

It was therefore more than slightly jarring that Treville kept catching on. Worse still, he seemed resistant to Richelieu’s usual brand of hypnosis. He’d never put much stock in such things, and much preferred old-fashioned subterfuge to that seduction and telepathy routine. The damned Musketeer had been subjected to subtle interference _twice_ now, and another, more powerful intervention with enough mental force behind it to make him ill for days, yet he still suspected. He still suspected, and interrupted just as Richelieu was licking the last of Louis’s blood from his thin lips.

It went more or less as it had every time before. Treville inevitably reached for his pistol; Richelieu inevitably darted across the room to stop him, and had to clap a hand over Treville’s mouth before he could scream. The action took far less time to perform than it took to read these words; indeed, it was possible he could have outrun a gunshot. Richelieu often wondered what his more supernaturally-inclined movements would look like to humans. On a number of occasions, he had demonstrated, and asked his audience to describe what they saw. Thus far, all had been too busy shrieking to form a coherent response.

As with everything else, Richelieu considered this incredibly tiresome, and _remarkably_ unhelpful.

Louis, of course, was barely conscious—hardly a change from his healthy state—and simply stared dazedly at the ceiling of his private chamber, oblivious to the fight.

“Oh, Treville. Once more? It is such a pity that erasing your memory seems to have kept you from learning your lesson.” Treville’s teeth were scraping dully over the Cardinal’s palm. “No biting,Captain. If you do somehow break the skin, you will find yourself turned into as much of a monster as I.”

He felt a pinch in his stomach, just under his ribcage.

Richelieu heaved a sigh through his nose, with the full understanding that it would undoubtedly cause a humorous flutter from his mustache. “Did you just stab me?”

He glanced down, and sure enough, Treville’s hand was still wrapped around the handle of the dagger currently buried in his abdomen.

“You _did_ stab me. How tremendously ineffectual of you.” Treville’s eyes were quite as wide and fearful as they should have been, which was satisfying. He was, however, a soldier, and therefore attempted to twist the blade. “Oh, no. There’s no need for that.” Richelieu’s unoccupied hand peeled Treville’s trembling fingers off the handle. “There seems to be, however, a considerable need for this,” he continued, and pressed his lips to Treville’s neck. He didn’t bite; he didn’t have to. The moment he made contact, Treville’s eyelids drooped, his body slumped, his knees buckled. “Good. That’s it, relax.” Another gentle kiss, this one to Treville’s slack mouth, and the notoriously tight-wound soldier was barely conscious. Richelieu helped him down, quite carefully, so that he was sitting on the floor, back against the wall. His head lolled limply. It was rather adorable.

All vampires could do this, of course, to one degree or another. Even the permanently night-bound gutter trash so often spoken of in lore had a mild sedative capacity. In the current age of scientific discovery, the popular opinion was that some kind of drug would be released from the lips, penetrating the skin. More powerful vampires could produce this drug in greater concentrations, so Richelieu could produce complete unconsciousness with a few brief kisses, if he so desired. His sire, the First, being ridiculously powerful, could induce a permanent coma with a mere brush of his lips, if he so desired.

(On a dare during a family reunion, the First had once swallowed a lit gunpowder explosive, just to see what would happen. There had been a brief delay, during which they speculated that the fuse had been snuffed. Then, a muffled thump, and the First had burped up a fairly significant quantity of stinking black smoke. He commented that it tasted pleasantly like the air after a volley of cannonfire, and resumed drinking his wine, having suffered no pain or ill effect whatsoever. Richelieu himself would not be willing to try this; as old as he felt sometimes, he was among the _youngest_ of his dozen brothers and sisters, with only two being his junior. One of Richelieu’s older brothers had helped design the Great Pyramid of Giza. The eldest of the First’s childes was long dead, but she had significantly predated even that. The First himself claimed to preexist _writing_. Richelieu believed him.)

One long-fingered hand wrapped around the dagger’s handle and tugged it out efficiently. It had been bloodied, of course, but there was no leaking-jetting-arcing spray of blood from the wound, as there would have been from a human. Richelieu’s blood was as black as tar, and only slightly more liquid. He supposed he’d have to order a new tunic. Inconvenient. Still, he’d had his eye on that black leather number for a while now. At least he had an excuse.

The only present way to rid a blade of vampiric blood, and thereby avoid that blade turning everyone it cut, was to soak it in oil of vitriol for no less than eighteen days. This would, of course, significantly damage the dagger, and render it useless. Richelieu would do it nonetheless, before he disposed of the item somewhere. “I hope you weren’t fond of this,” Richelieu said to Treville, waving the dagger in front of Treville’s drooping eyes. “You’re never going to see it again.” He tucked the dagger into his belt, carefully, and examined Treville’s hands carefully for traces of further blood. A smudge of black-red, there, on the web of skin between the thumb and forefinger. Richelieu licked it away, disregarding the Musketeer’s soft sounds. No more was to be found, so Richelieu scooped Treville up, as easily as if he were an empty paper sack, and set about sneaking him back into his room at the garrison.

This time, he was far more thorough. In future, Richelieu would talk to his siblings, and get some lessons on forced forgetfulness. His oldest sister, in particular, had a talent for the precise extraction of memory, and her subjects never even realized they were missing anything. For now, he did his best. Treville would probably be bedridden for weeks; he may even die. But, if he did, it couldn’t be traced back to the Cardinal. It would be blamed on some natural disease, and never associated with him. He was safe.

Even if they _did_ find out what he was, it would take a cannon to kill him. A cannon, or a bomb, or some other slow and clumsy construction. Given the alacrity with which he could move, he very much doubted they could even _arm_ such devices before he escaped or killed them all. But he’d rather not find out. Richelieu had no intention of keeping his current name forever. He’d had many, and lacked attachment to any particular one. But he fully anticipated staying around for a long, _long_ time. He liked this world. He wanted to see what would happen next.

**Author's Note:**

> A Vampire!Malcolm Tucker sequel is already in the works. *hums "Be Prepared" from The Lion King*


End file.
